Plainwater: Essays and Poetry

By Anne Carson

The poetry and prose collected in Plainwater are a testament to the extraordinary imagination of Anne Carson, a writer described by Michael Ondaatje as "the most exciting poet writing in English today." Succinct and astonishingly beautiful, these pieces stretch the boundaries of language and literary form, while juxtaposing classical and modern traditions.

Carson envisions a present-day interview with a seventh-century BC poet, and offers miniature lectures on topics as varied as orchids and Ovid. She imagines the muse of a fifteenth-century painter attending a phenomenology conference in Italy. She constructs verbal photographs of a series of mysterious towns, and takes us on a pilgrimage in pursuit of the elusive and intimate anthropology of water. Blending the rhythm and vivid metaphor of poetry with the discursive nature of the essay, the writings in Plainwater dazzle us with their invention and enlighten us with their erudition.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
• Release date: Mar 18, 2015
• ISBN: 9781101911273

Anne Carson

Anne Carson was born in Canada and teaches ancient Greek for a living. A former MacArthur Fellow, awards for her numerous books include the T.S. Eliot Prize and The Los Angeles Times Book Prize. Red Doc> was recently awarded the Griffin Poetry Prize and the inaugural Folio Prize. Her first full poetry collection Short Talks was published by Brick Books in 1992 and is now presented as a new edition in 2015 – Short Talks: Brick Books Classics 1.

Reviews for Plainwater

[drbrand-271246 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Anne Carson composes a stretto of Japanese and Greek poets, Renaissance painters, Chinese courtesans, Spanish nobleman and German authors in Plainwater. As usual, it's difficult to describe the esoteric legerdemain she can conjure, but a few examples reside in this collection: imbuing Mimnermus with magical anachronism; the dissection of a personal relationship juxtaposed with Zen poetry and ancient Chinese anecdotes about emperors and concubines; and poetic homilies that stir the mind and the heart. What is most remarkable to me about Anne Carson will always be her ability to layer metaphors, fuguelike, throughout her work. Like other great artists, her output builds atop itself, not just across a single collection, but throughout a career, creating a body of work that is truly unique.

[annalyssa-1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

the entire volume vibrates with perfect rhythm.

[dawnpen · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Carson's Plainwater is classic. In the sense that it's the first and it's the one that I read first. It's also the one I taught my students and the one they came to me to see about and the write like and the one that we were all reading when my cat died. That passage about anna. And also the one with the blood oranges. What a comfort an essay is. Who would have known. Also it is the one I bought god so so long ago and it is ruined because I've read it that many times and others have also gotten their hands on it and I found a first edition at the library sale and it's great it's okay, it sort of stands in.